Chapter 183 - Shimon the Heretic's True Face is Publicly Revealed

00:01 Here, as the story continues, we remove the mask from the face of Shimon the heretic. Shimon the heretic continues in his letter to Pesseles: “I spent about six weeks traveling through the provinces of Mogilev, Minsk and Chernigov, and then hurried to Lviv. There I met with our friends—that is, the various Maskilim—and gave them a detailed report. I told them that the chassidim are not only firmly established; they are steadily taking over the towns through a calculated strategy and an orderly plan, and the masses are flocking to them in droves. Our friends decided that, first of all, the ban must be renewed with even greater force than before, especially the severity of the ban against anyone who associates with them or draws close to them. We said that such a ban would alarm the masses and make them draw back from approaching the chassidim. We must also send people to the capital to discredit them in the eyes of the government and inform on their leader, claiming that he collects large sums of money and sends them out of the country, to the land of Ishmael. Once he has amassed a large sum, he will go there to rule over the Jews, as the followers of Shabbetai Tzvi and Frank did. Our friends know that the leader of the chassidim already has influential people in government circles, and even more so among the princes and nobles. Nevertheless, they hope to succeed through some of the French tutors employed in the households of the princes, nobles and government ministers.” [unclear] Baruch, the chassidim’s spy among the misnagdim, told Reb Baruch Mordechai that, as he understood it, Shimon the heretic had brought the text of the ban, and all that remained was the signature of the gaon Rabbi Eliyahu. Mr. Pesseles would surely arrange that with the committee waging the campaign. On Motzaei Shabbos Shuvah, Reb Baruch, Reb Mordechai and Reb Moshe Meisels called a meeting of select members of the chassidic community who headed its defense against the misnagdim’s campaign. They told them everything about Shimon the heretic, and together they decided that on Chol Hamoed Sukkos, the community council would call a large meeting. There they would announce and publicize the documents and tear the mask from the face of

03:29 Shimon the heretic, who was sacrificing Jewish children to the Moloch of the Haskalah. Then, on Thursday, the day after Yom Kippur 5557, word spread through the city like lightning that the gaon Rabbi Eliyahu, the Gra, had proclaimed a severe ban against the chassidim, headed by their leader. According to the ban, the gaon had permitted, and even decreed, that every imaginable harm be done to the chassidim. He had ordered that no one take pity on them or spare them, and that anyone who had dealings with them be stretched on the rack. The ban shook not only the chassidim of Vilna, but also the moderates among the misnagdim. That same day, word spread that the ban had been proclaimed without the Gra’s knowledge: the Gra was already seventy-seven and a half years old, and the Yom Kippur fast had greatly weakened him. It was the committee waging the campaign against the chassidim, led by Pesseles and Shimon the heretic, that had done this. That was why the ban had been proclaimed early in the morning, in the presence of only a few people. A note at the bottom says: “To the gaon Rabbi Eliyahu’s last day, it was never established whether the ban was proclaimed with his knowledge. From the warmth he showed the leaders of the chassidim in Vilna, it appeared that he had no idea a ban against the chassidim had been proclaimed.” On Friday, the day after the ban was proclaimed, 12 Tishrei 5557, the community leader serving that month, the chossid Reb Meir Raphaels, issued a public notice to all the Jews of Vilna and its suburbs. The notice read: “First, the ban against the chassidim has not been approved by the beis din, which refuses to approve it because it has not been established that it came from the Gra. Second, on Wednesday, the first day of Chol Hamoed Sukkos, there will be a public meeting. By order of the community, all men, women and children of bar mitzvah age and older must attend.” On the day the ban against the chassidim was proclaimed, the chassidim of Vilna sent an open letter on the matter from the community leaders, including some of the misnagdim. They sent special messengers to the communities of Brisk, Shklov and Minsk and asked that it be publicized. To the chassidic communities

06:21 in Minsk, Shklov, Svintsyan, Vitebsk and Mogilev, they wrote that documents and letters signed by the man named in this notice and his associates had just come to light. This man, Shimon the heretic, had been spoken of favorably by the gaon and chossid—that is, the Gra—and had been promoted to a position of authority over the teachers in the yeshivos and chadarim of Vilna. Because of his exceptional knowledge of grammar and his analytical approach to studying Tanach, he had gained their trust. In truth, he was a complete apikores, an agent of the Maskilim sent to ensnare souls, draw them away from Torah study and entice them to study Haskalah. During the four years he had lived in Vilna, he had sent many young people to the Maskilim’s schools in Galicia and Germany, and many of them had already left the path of Judaism. Then, on Wednesday, the first day of Chol Hamoed Sukkos, at the large meeting convened by the community in the presence of the beis din, the community leaders and its respected members, two prominent men stood up and declared that they could testify about the man everyone called Reb Shimon the Grammarian. He was in fact an agent of the Maskilim, drawing yeshivah students away from their studies and enticing them to attend the Maskilim’s schools in Galicia and Germany. They had a list of the students he had enticed over four years, from 5552 to 5556, together with the amounts of money he had spent on them. The two men making the declaration were prepared to take a solemn oath that what they said was true. Everything they had said was recorded in the handwriting of Shimon the her—heretic, who enticed and led people astray, and in the handwriting of his associates. They also demanded that Pesseles be placed under a solemn oath to tell what he knew of Shimon the heretic’s abominable deeds. Shimon was terrified when he heard this. As he stood with his hat turned backward and a bewildered look in his eyes, two of the community guards took hold of him, and several young chassidim surrounded him so he could not escape. At the same time, they had to keep the crowd from stoning him, for anger among those assembled was mounting. Many of the students’ parents had sent[?] their sons to yeshivos, as Shimon the heretic had told them,

09:19 and had heard nothing from their sons all that time. But they had taken comfort in the reports Shimon the heretic gave them of their sons’ success in their studies, and hoped to see them return crowned with certificates of semichah. Now they heard that their sons had fallen into the trap of the Maskilim, who were despised by the Jewish community. They tore out their hair, while the women, the students’ mothers, lamented their calamity, and the meeting turned into a scene of mourning. The uproar over Shimon the heretic pushed everything else aside. For about three weeks, the beis din examined the documents, lists and letters taken from Shimon’s home. Throughout that time, Shimon was held in the community jail under heavy guard. Pesseles’s efforts on his behalf did him no good, and in mid-Cheshvan he was sentenced to be driven out of the city with his household in a procession of disgrace, as was customary at the time. First he was to stand in the pillory for three hours a day over three days, while everyone passing by spat in his face. On Thursday, 23 Cheshvan, the sentence would be carried out: Shimon the heretic and his household would be escorted out of the city in a procession of disgrace. What Shimon the heretic had done humiliated those among the misnagdim who had respected him, especially the gaon Rabbi Avraham, son of the Gra. It also cast a dark shadow over the wealthy communal activist Yosef Pesseles, who was in fact an associate of the Berlin Maskilim, notorious throughout the Jewish community. The Gra’s health worsened day by day, and during the festival of Sukkos 5557 he could not sit in the sukkah. His students, headed by the eminent gaon Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, organized special shifts to attend to him. After the festival he spent most of his time in bed, yet he remained wrapped in his tallis and wearing tefillin for most of the day. He could no longer see, and because of his great weakness he did not trust himself to recite the prayers in the proper order, so he pleaded with others to pray with him word by word. Despite his great weakness, he did not stop speaking words of Torah at any of his regular lessons, whether in the revealed or the hidden dimensions of Torah, all from memory.

12:08 And his distinguished students took turns keeping watch over him, each at his appointed time, as assigned by lot. When it became known that the Gaon of Vilna’s health was failing, the beis din and community leaders gathered to deliberate. They decided to announce in all the synagogues of Vilna and the surrounding region that Tehillim should be recited publicly, praying that Hashem send the Gaon a recovery and lengthen his days and years. The Chabad chassidim in Vilna and the surrounding region also arranged public recitations of Tehillim, with prayers and supplications for the Gaon’s well-being. This displeased the hardliners among the misnagdim, particularly the committee campaigning against the chassidim. One day, the Gaon Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin happened to attend a seudas mitzvah held by one of Rabbi Shlomo of Dubno’s students. Rabbi Chaim considered the address given by the father of the guest of honor to lean toward heresy. By that time Rabbi Shlomo of Dubno was elderly and had lost his discernment. In his lectures, he explained teachings of our Sages according to principles of secular inquiry, incorporating ideas he had absorbed from a circle of maskilim while staying at Mendelssohn’s home. Since Rabbi Chaim and his brother Rabbi Shlomo Zalman had been among those who endorsed Rabbi Shlomo of Dubno’s commentary and praised it highly, Rabbi Chaim was deeply distressed by this. At the beginning of Teves 5557, copies of Likkutei Amarim arrived in Vilna; its printing had been completed on 20 Kislev 5557. The Chabad chassidim were overjoyed and set aside a day for feasting and celebration. It happened, however, that on that same night the Gaon fainted twice because of his great weakness. When news of his fainting became known the next day, the committee campaigning against the chassidim spread the slander that the chassidim had held thanksgiving feasts because of the Gaon’s weakness. The wealthy Pesles, in particular, stirred up the city. He collected copies of Likkutei Amarim and, together with members of the committee, announced in the Gaon’s name that the book would be burned in the synagogue courtyard. Yet the chassidim of Vilna, despite their intense pain at seeing the tzaddik’s book trampled and burned, made every effort to remain restrained, for they were bound by the directive of the chassidic leaders

14:59 and the chassidic members of the community to overlook this disgraceful act. Their restraint won the approval of many among the misnagdim, especially the Gaon Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin. After Hashem enabled the Alter Rebbe to thwart the plans of the wicked Derzhavin, the Alter Rebbe established a special committee of people to attend to matters concerning the public good, as we have already related. But Shimon [unclear], that same Shimon the heretic, and his fellow maskilim did not rest. For an entire year they plotted how to wage a vigorous campaign against the chassidim. They decided that the maskilim of Berlin and Königsberg would write lengthy articles in German and French describing the chassidim’s approach and their strange conduct, and would stir up scholars in Germany and France to influence circles of government ministers in Russia to eradicate the chassidic movement from among the Jews. The Chabad chassidim in Petersburg noticed that the princes and high-ranking ministers they knew had changed their attitude toward them. From the various questions these men asked about the groups and factions among the Jews, the chassidim understood that a hidden hand was working against them. But whose hand was it, and what was it doing? They did not know. About a year passed this way. Then, on Sunday, the second day of Chol Hamoed Sukkos 5558—that is, a year later—a group of chassidim gathered in the sukkah of the chossid and community leader Rabbi Meir Rafaels and rejoiced in the celebration of Simchas Beis Hashoevah. Because the Gaon of Vilna was in critical condition, they recited a Mi Sheberach blessing for his recovery. Meanwhile, several members of the committee campaigning against the chassidim burst in, shouting, “Our teacher, the Gaon, is dying, and you are celebrating over it, G-d forbid!” They caused a great uproar. The committee’s members then spread alarming rumors, swore an oath of revenge, and worked toward it for about a year until they succeeded in their plot. The wealthy Yosef Pesles and his fellow maskilim were very pleased.